Thursday, July 30, 2015

Folks, there's a reason that whenever we had something from Taco Bell that needed reviewing, that Mike did them all. He had a love for Taco Bell that Josh and I have never had. Sure, there's been times where I found myself in need of some late night food at low, low prices and they hit the spot. But to be honest, I would say a good 85% of the time I visit a Taco Bell, I leave saying I doubt I'll ever come back.

Well, then some of our readers started asking us to review the Bacon Club Chalupa $5 box and the new Cap'n Crunch Delights. With Mike now retired from the food blogging game, it has fallen on me. So I headed down to my local Taco Bell with this image of the Bacon Club Chalupa $5 box in my head...

WHAT A DEAL! Look how pretty it is!

And...well...after I order, and then wait twenty minutes for my food, this is what they hand to me...

Wait...what?

All I can think of is, "Well, here we go again."

No cool box. No pretty looking food. Just a bunch of junk wrapped up in paper and slam dunked onto a plastic tray. Do I really care that much about the box? I guess not? But with my already low expectations I feel like this is just a warning of things to come! But let's take a look...

Don't worry, gang. The bacon is under this, I'm sure!

So I'll skip the past the taco, burrito and drink that come as a part of this $5 box because that's not what we're here to talk about. Jump right to the Bacon Club Chalupa, back for a limited time. I'm holding on to my excitement because their commercials for this thing pump up how much bacon is in it. I'm in the mood to be overloaded by bacon, especially after waiting twenty minutes for this thing. I open it up and I'm met with lots of veggies!

Yeah I think I see some bacon there!...right?

After getting out a pair of old man glasses, then a giant magnifying glass, I finally locate some bacon at the bottom of six inches of stacked lettuce. Little tiny bacon bits. Enough to fit in an infants palm. That's it. That's what all the excitement is about. Their commercials have people in a mall where everything there is bacon. In fact, lets take a look at how this thing looks in the last bit of their commercial...

That's a lot of bacon there...

Yeah. This bacon situation is a lie. Sure, I could have gotten a bad one, but come on. This is a pretty drastic difference. When your main selling point of an item is bacon and you serve it to me with barely ANY bacon, I'm going to call you out on it, TB! Oh and also, I only got one piece of chicken on mine. ONE. PIECE. OF. CHICKEN.

Oh, cool. One piece of chicken and some bacon bits.

The Bacon Club Chalupa and it's $5 box get an F from me. In fact, if I could find the FGFB bat, I might be making a new video. Sure, it's a bunch of food for five bucks, but you know what? It's still not worth it. This thing should have been packed with so much bacon that I would take a step back and think about my life before taking that first bite. But no, instead, I'm left with some bacon bits, one piece of chicken and a head of lettuce. F. All the way.

Next up we have the Cap'n Crunch Delights! Now, I'm a big Cap'n Crunch fan. To this day I can take down a box of Crunch Berries with the best of them. However, I think I know what to expect from these because of their Cinnabon Delights. The first couple you eat are the best thing that's ever happened to you. Then you quickly want to die because they are just little goo filled grease balls. But...let's give these a try!

These came out piping hot and the first thing I notice is that they smell incredibly like Cap'n Crunch Berries. That's because each one is covered in what appears to be the dust from a box of that cereal. They finally found a use for it! So right out the gate they smell like a Cap'n Crunch pastry should. So I pop the first one in my mouth...

Ehhhh....

And a blast of hot goo shoots out. It's greasy and sweet and the Cap'n Dust mixes in for a great flavor. But at the same time I'm a little grossed out. There were four in the little bag. After my third one I was like Starlord in the following gif:

But I won't be too hard on them. They are tasty as long as you don't eat too many. I know you're tempted to get the big pack, but my friend, stick with that four pack. Hell, even give one to a pal to try so you don't eat all four and you'll walk away happy. I give the Taco Bell Cap'n Crunch Delights a C! Tasty, warm and sweet, covered in Cap'n Crunch dust, but the downside is they quickly make you feel like you want your stomach pumped out.

Taco Bell, I'm helping you out here. I redid one of your ads to make it a bit more truthful. Feel free to use it if you'd like.

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Wednesday, July 22, 2015

I remember the day I heard that the Baconator was a real thing. That Wendy's actually had the balls to name a burger after one of the greatest movies of all time. An R rated movie about a killer robot that time traveled. It really drove home what they were trying to do. One of them killed without mercy. The other? Had so much bacon that some mortals were begging for mercy before they finished it. The other big point is that the Baconator was damn good and it's so good that it's become a standard part of the Wendy's menu. Since then we've gotten SON OF BACONATOR. But, come on. Who buys that thing? The name is funny, but if I'm cruising the streets in need of a bacon packed burger, I'm going big. Or going home. To grill my own.

So when word came down the line that Wendy's was about to debut Baconator Fries, you can bet I went straight to my local Wendy's. Where they promptly told me they weren't doing them yet. But probably in a few days. So I said...

Two days later I returned and saw the sign in the window, so it was on. Let's get to it! The Fatguyfoodblog review of Wendy's new BACONATOR FRIES!

First off I'm going to give you the run down of what Baconator fries are. First up, they pop about a medium order of fries in one of these little containers. Then they pour a blob of liquid cheese sauce on it, followed by a handful of shredded cheddar. Then? Real bacon pieces are sprinkled across the top. Pretty cut and dry. I was kind of hoping that they would be big enough to be a meal on their own, but when I saw the $1.99 price tag I figured I'd have to supplement the fries with another item or two if I was going to round out a proper lunch...

Yes. That is a Baconator with a side of Baconator Fries. Why? Because one of our readers dared me to. So why the hell not? If I'm going to march into Wendy's and take on the Baconator Fries, I might as well make it a handicap match and take on both of them. Well...I also got a four piece spicy nugget. When the guy asked at the end of my order it was tough to say no.

So the question here, after all this...are the Baconator Fries worthy of their name?

Well...they aren't bad! Let's be honest, Wendy's has great fries. It's hard to deny. So when you think of this, bunch of cheese and real bacon on good french fries, how can you go wrong? The answer? Cheese sauce. It doesn't taste particularly bad, or anything like that. It's not the cheap nacho cheese that you get with the awful nachos when you go to the movies. But it's still liquid cheese being poured over fries. So unless you eat these within thirty seconds of the cheese sauce being drizzled over them, you're looking at about half of your fries being soggy. Soggy fries are enough to bring a tear to my eye...

The Sog factor. It's a very real thing. One that everyone who has ever eaten cheese fries could tell you about. So it seems like ol' Dave Thomas would be rolling over in his grave if he knew his places were serving people soggy fries covered in cheese sauce. What would solve this? USE REAL CHEESE. Like the shredded cheddar you already have on them. But...you know, maybe actually melt it. When I got mine I was eating cold cheese chunks sitting in cheese sauce. Again...not exactly a bad flavor, but it could have been so much better if the shredded cheddar was melted too.

I'm going to give Wendy's Baconator Fries a C+. Perhaps if mine had included melted cheddar I might have bumped it up a grade. The biggest issue is the cheese sauce making the fries soggy. We deal with it, but none of us actually like soggy fries, even when they are soggy with cheese. Maybe an answer could be bacon and shredded cheddar melted over them, with a cup of liquid cheese to dip in? But in the end, these are just Wendy's making something new out of whats just laying around in an everyday Wendy's. They aren't bad, especially for that low, low, $1.99 price tag, but don't expect to be blown away. In the end, this is still a pile of fries covered in cheese and bacon for two bucks. Still a pretty solid deal.

One last thing to add? The Baconator I got to go along with this was fantastic. So fear not, Wendy's. While these fries weren't a home run, you don't have to worry, you still deliver when it counts. I'll be back.

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Monday, July 13, 2015

Honestly, what can I say? What can I say that'll give you an accurate portrayal of the role that Pizza Hut has played here? Inventor? Savior? Mad Scientist? Could Pizza Hut be all three? Let me tell you a little something about this pizza.

The Pizza Hut Pretzel Hot Dog Bites Pizza

The only emoji I could think that would describe my mindset when I heard the big man on campus, Pizza Hut, was doing something this crazy, would probably be this one.

Pizza Hut has delivered unto us, a pizza so far out there that, stoned teenagers of old spoke about it late at night, through a thick plume of marijuana smoke in their parents basements. Shamans and medicine men danced around fires, speaking tales of ancestors, who foretold of a prophecy. The halls of Valhalla, overflowing with endless bounty, filled with pizza, filled with hot dogs, wrapped, in pretzels....

I was undoubtedly excited about grabbing this. In the back of my mind, this pizza could possibly be a contender to the throne, which is currently held by The La Festa Garlic Knot Pizza.

I'm a sucker for PH's crust, and with their current creative management, who I believe to be the Kenny Powers of the pizza world, might as well be telling everyone else to not even FUCKING try.

With all this going for it, and with all this hype, Pizza Hut sure as hell still managed to mess it up.
The slices were incredibly thin. One of the best things PH has going for it is it's crust, and with this new iteration of "Bites", they completely ignored the actual pizza crust in the middle.

The sauce was weak, the cheese, thin, the bacon, whatever. The pizza within this was absolutely horrid. If it weren't for the pretzel hot dogs on the edges, I could have sworn this was a classic Mr. P's microwave pizza, but I sure as hell paid more than 99 cents for it. Absolutely disappointing.

So after forcing myself to eat weird cardboard pizza with bacon bits sprinkled on top, I directed my attention to the crust. Thick pieces of pretzels with a miniature hot dog encased within, split for easy handling. I was pretty impressed that it came with a small French's mustard for dipping.

These were exactly how you'd expect them to be. Fast food excellent. The pretzels were just like a soft one you'd get at TCBY on your way to gamestop. The hot dog, classic steamed meat squish. It was satisfyingly good, but I found myself not really gearing up for slice number two. The 300 Spartans that were currently waging war in my guts would not go down without a fight. After waiting about 10 minutes, my guts stopped churning, and the pleasant experience I had with the pretzel crust, made me think suffering through the extremely poorly crafted pizza was worth it. Until my guts churned again, and then the cycle began anew.

that pizza is TOO DAMN THIN.

I haven't been this let down since I found out Jesus Christ wasn't real. I had such high hopes for this thing, I can't believe Pizza Hut let all of us down like that. It's like they came up with the idea, and then just wanted to get it to press as fast as humanly possible, before any other competitor could use this absolute media golden hype train.

At the next Pizza Hut board meeting.

So, I'm going to give this pizza an F.

Not based soley on the food alone, but what it could have been, what it should have been, and how bad Pizza Hut just pissed, shit, and puked the bed on this. Go to HELL.

-Josh

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Friday, July 10, 2015

What happens when little cookie making elves who live in trees decide to team up with one of the biggest peanut butter companies? We would hope a damn good peanut butter cookie, of some sort, right? Well when I saw these Keebler Jif cookies in the store, I snatched a package up so quick that you would have had to film it with a phantom camera and replay it in super slow motion to see it happen. I barely got home without ripping the package going and I'll be honest, it was just because I was scared I was going to rip the package and not be able to take a picture for this blog.

THAT IS DEDICATION, MY FRIENDS!

But let's take a look at the new Keebler Jif Cookies!

On the package, Ernie the leader of the Keelber Elves lets us know that these cookies are simply, fudge, peanut butter and crunchy nuts. But there's also a stamp letting us know that there's none of that FAKE peanut butter in these cookies. This is made with JIF peanut butter. Which I guess is good since their logo is all over the package. How weird would it have been to have Skippy in there, or Peter Pan? The package was well done though. I liked that they made sure to work the Jif colors into the background. But who cares about packaging. We want to know about the cookies!

First thing you notice when you rip this package open is that there are not many cookies in here at all. This isn't a package you can go hog wild on. These are made to be savored and eaten slow. Or, they are the kind of thing that you had better pick up two bags of, because listen up, Jack...You'll rip through one package in no time flat. Basically you have a round chocolate cookie that reminded me of what comes in the PB Twix. Topped with a layer of Jif peanut butter, and then covered in chocolate and crushed up peanuts. How can you go wrong with this?

These cookies are awesome. They have a great crunch to them and almost immediately they make me think that this is kind of what it would taste like to go back in time and eat a Reeses Crunchy Peanut Butter Cup and a Reeses Crunchy Cookie Cup together. They are full of flavor. From the sweetness of the outer fudge to the salty peanut butter. The textures are great because you have the cookie inside and the peanuts on the outside. They even remind me a bit of the Tagalongs Girl Scout cookies. If that's a flavor you enjoy, burn it into your mind, because at the rate the packages of Girl Scout Cookies are getting smaller, within a year or two they are just going to blink out of existence.

I'm giving the Keebler Jif cookies an A. If you like the chocolate peanut butter combination, like most, non-devil worshiping people do, then you should buy these cookies. They are a fantastic re-imagining of one of the best food combinations that our human brains have ever come up with, AND it's got an added bit of fun with the peanuts and cookie crunch. Even if Jif isn't your usual first choice for peanut butter, trust me. You can taste the difference when a cookie is made with real peanut butter as opposed to that weird fake stuff you find in many mass produced cookies. These are only around for a limited time so don't wait!

One thing is for sure, they definitely get Irwin's seal of approval. (Well, as much as he could smell. We aren't giving the Big Guy any chocolate!)

Are you a reader of the FGFB and want to request a review? A company that would like us to try their stuff? Drop us an email at fatguyfoodblog@gmail.com! We love to hear from you. Even if it's just to tell us that you think we suck! Also, don't forget, we are also on Twitter: @fatguyfoodblog and we have a Facebook page you can LIKE! Why would you want to follow us on those things? Well we let you know all the up to date happenings in the world of snacks , fast food and more! Plus we will let you know when new reviews go live AND every once in a while we do some cool giveaways! YOU LIKE FREE STUFF RIGHT? DO IT. Do it.

Thursday, July 2, 2015

Back home in New England the closest California Pizza Kitchen we had was in Boston and that wasn't very close at all when you're just looking to score a pie for dinner. But I did take a couple trips there and it was always mobbed with people. But hot damn, were their pizzas good! So when we heard ol' CPK was coming out with some new frozen pizza offerings, we decided it would be a good time for the FGFB crew to take a look at them.

HOWEVER...

It made complete sense that if we were going to get in depth with the full CPK experience, we should actually visit one of their locations in preparation, right? HELL YEAH.

Sweet mother of mercy. Look at this thing!

So we hit up the local CPK and I ordered their Jamaican Jerk chicken pizza. It was absolutely off the charts awesome. Seriously. Just look at the picture. Take a moment and really let it sink in. The sauce on it is so sweet but has a wild spicy kick. The bacon was perfect and there was a ton of it. The chicken and veggies were all fresh and together created a flavor that nearly blasted my brain right out of my skull. All on one of their thin crusts so you don't have to feel like as much of a slob when you eat the entire damn thing.

All in all, it's a top ten pizza in my brain. So once I stumbled out of there, drunk on pizza pie, I knew I was ready to take on these three new frozen CPK originals, because now I had the true CPK experience fresh in my mind!

From the looks of it there were three new flavors, plus a bunch of gluten free options. Well...after a quick poll from our readers, they told us they didn't really care about the gluten free ones, so sorry to all of you that can't do the gluten, our readers apparently hate you. Bunch of jerks. So we're trying the three new flavors, first up...THE WORKS!

According to this bad boy, it has hand tossed crust, pepperoni, italian pork sausage, green bell peppers, caramelized onions, mushrooms, black olives, mozzarella, Parmesan, asiago AND Romano cheeses, and herbed tomato sauce. That sounds like quite the medley! But, I'm going to be honest here, I took the mushrooms off. Why? Because unless they are the magic kinds, I want nothing to do with those gross, slimy things! Also, if we're being honest, I added cheese to each of these, but I won't be deducting points for that because I have literally never eaten a frozen pizza that didn't need a little extra cheese. If you think you have, you're probably a liar, or you're not a big cheese fan. Either one it is, I'm shaking my head at you.

Once I pulled this from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes, I dove in. This pizza is delicious! I rarely ever get the works pizza from anywhere, because I'm a man who either goes traditional, or more often CRAZY with his pizza choices. But every part of this pie was great. Each ingredient burst with flavor. From the spiciness of the pepperoni and sausage, to the fresh tasting green peppers, I found myself nodding at the pie with each bite I took. The sauce stuck out too. It has a great tang to it and wasn't overpowering at all. The caramelized onions were a nice burst of sweetness.

If I had to find one negative thing about it I'd say that the very bottom of the crust ended up VERY crispy when cooked directly on the oven rack. The actual edge crust was awesome, it was just the bottom that would have touched the rack. That's just nit-picking though! This was a great pie. Very fresh tasting and you could tell with every bite that the all the ingredients were definitely a step up from the cheaper frozen pizzas. I give the California Pizza Kitchen hand Tossed THE WORKS Pizza a solid B!

Next up, quite possibly my favorite kind of pizza in existence, BBQ CHICKEN! CPK has always had a version of the bbq chicken pizza, but this was a new recipe so I was excited to try it. It's on the same Hand Tossed Crust as the Works pizza, but that is where the similarities end. The BBQ Chicken pizza has applewood smoked bacon, bbq seasoned white meat chicken, red onions, cilantro, smoked Gouda and mozzarella cheeses and a tangy bbq sauce!

So after adding a few pinches of cheese, I popped this one in the oven and anxiously awaited it to be finished. Just so you all know, I ate these over the course of like a week and a half. Just so you know I'm not sitting there all in one day eating three frozen pizzas myself. Although...that does sound like an awesome day. I'll tell you one thing, this pizza smelled amazing while in the oven!

Much like with the last pizza, I was very surprised at how good the toppings were. The cheeses were a great combo, with a slight smokiness to them. The chunks of chicken were big and didn't taste like weird lab-made meat blobs like on some other frozen pizzas. The bacon chunks were tasty as hell and the onions added a nice crunch. The sweetness of the bbq sauce went really well against the onions and bacon together. All in all a great bbq chicken pizza!

In the end if I'm looking to nit-pick this pizza, my only issues is the same as with The Works. The crust topside was awesome, but the bottom ended up being a bit hard for me. But up against how awesome the rest of the pizza was, it's not that big of a deal. This is another great CPK frozen pizza. Fresh tasting ingredients that make it taste like you are getting it at a restaurant. I give the California Pizza Kitchen New BBQ Chicken pizza a B+!

Now this one was the wild card. California Kale with Sausage. Hmmm. I know Kale is all the rage lately as a superfood that everyone wants to put into everything. But a pizza? My main experiences with kale have been when Josh gets on his kick making healthy smoothies after listening to Joe Rogans podcasts and begs me to try them. It usually tastes okay but the worst part of it is the kale. I usually tell him, "man, it would be pretty solid without that gross kale taste." So this pizza is going up against that bias to start with. BUT STAY WITH ME.

This one boasts California Kale, Italian sausage, vine-ripened tomatoes, mozzarella, parmesan, asiago and romano cheeses, with a zesty marinara sauce on a thin crust. FOUR CHEESES?! Yeah you read that right. The rest of this is stuff I NEVER get on pizza. Sausage? Once in a great while. Tomatoes? Never. KALE? Never in a million years. But I added some cheese and tossed it in the oven, because, bro, I'm not backing down from this challenge now! But I have to say, for a pizza that boasts having FOUR KINDS OF CHEESE, there wasn't that much cheese on this thing! But that's a problem easily solved in my house, my friends!

I was so unsure about this pizza that I even had a backup plan for dinner in case it was so gross that I couldn't eat it. But I'm happy to say that wasn't the case. The sausage seemed to be the same one from the Works pizza, very flavorful and not fatty at all. The tomatoes burst with tart flavor that seemed to enhance the already zesty sauce. The kale? It really didn't do too much. When you got a bite that had a lot of kale you got a tinge of that flavor, but otherwise it didn't overpower the flavor at all. It kind of reminded me of the few times I've had baby spinach on a pizza. But with slight strange aftertaste. How about the crust? GREAT. Their thin crust is very well done. Just the right amount of crispy to chewy consistency and very flavorful.

Now even though the CPK California Kale with sausage isn't a pizza I would normally get, I have to say, I kind of enjoyed it and I'm giving it a B! The kale took a little away and while I always say that frozen pizzas need extra cheese, this one had an exceptionally small amount. But if you're like me and you add it anyway, not a big deal. Other than the the ingredients were fresh and delicious and the thin crust was better to me than the hand tossed, all the way. This is a limited edition pie so if you're a kale lover and this review has you interested, you better act fast!

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